Support among the city’s political elite for the San Diego Ethics Commission is at its lowest point since then-Mayor Dick Murphy pushed for its creation in 2001 to follow through on a campaign promise.

The City Council has refused to grant the panel additional subpoena power or make it illegal to lie to commission staff. An investigator was laid off in the latest round of budget cuts, and a commissioner who had been the most outspoken advocate for holding public officials accountable is leaving the panel after Mayor Jerry Sanders declined to reappoint him.

The fact that this is all happening as the commission ramps up the frequency and heft of its fines hasn’t been lost on those who closely follow the watchdog agency.

Perhaps no case better represents the changing attitude toward the commission than its investigation into Councilwoman Marti Emerald.

Emerald and her attorney plan to use a Feb. 25 hearing over her alleged campaign violations to, in essence, put the ethics panel on trial. The goal is to tap into the growing displeasure in the political community over how the agency enforces a range of city laws.

To some, such a clash was inevitable.

Charlie Walker, an attorney who was the commission’s first executive director, said colleagues warned him he would enjoy a honeymoon period until he brought cases against elected officials.

“They said once that starts, the honeymoon is over,” Walker said. “And that’s exactly how it appears to me to have played out here.”

Walker added: “If they’re just praising you and giving you money all the time, chances are you may not be vigorously enforcing the laws you’ve been entrusted to enforce.”

Emerald is the first elected city official to openly challenge the ethics panel over an enforcement action — but her argument isn’t that she is innocent. Instead, she accuses investigators of going on fishing expeditions, abusing their power and making her campaign treasurer cry. Whether her argument leads to a reduction in the potential $10,000 fine she faces remains to be seen.

Emerald is accused of neglecting to record in a timely fashion $50,000 in bonuses owed to her campaign consultant and fundraiser after her victory in the November 2008 election. She didn’t report the bonuses until July 13 — eight months after they were incurred and only after being notified of the discrepancy by the ethics panel.

The delay allowed Emerald to collect contributions to cover a debt that had not been disclosed. Much of the roughly $73,600 she raised between January and June of last year came from lobbyists and developers who stood to gain from her decisions on the City Council.

Emerald said she’s making a stand for the volunteers who worked on and supported her campaign.

“This isn’t me trying to stick it to the Ethics Commission,” she said. “I actually hope that after it’s all said and done that we have a stronger relationship and an Ethics Commission that can be more effective.”

Emerald’s attorney, Bob Ottilie, said he will use the hearing to show how investigators bully witnesses and treat people unfairly.

“I think when the Ethics Commission was created, it wasn’t designed to treat people that make inadvertent, unintentional mistakes like criminals,” Ottilie said. “They’ve crossed way over that line in the last couple years.”

Stacey Fulhorst, the commission’s executive director, said there is “absolutely no evidence” that her staff is anything other than professional.

“The fact that a witness might get upset during an interview does not in any way correlate to a conclusion that an Ethics Commission staffer was heavy-handed,” Fulhorst said. “People frequently get upset when they are asked difficult questions.”

The commission was founded nine years ago after a scandal involving then-Councilwoman Valerie Stallings. In January 2001, she pleaded guilty in federal court to two misdemeanors for failing to report gifts from Padres owner John Moores while voting on the team’s downtown ballpark.

The panel is tasked with enforcing the city’s campaign, ethics and lobbying laws but also plays a major role in creating legislation and educating city officials on how to play by the rules.

But the most visible actions taken by the panel have involved its penalties. Council President Ben Hueso has questioned why the commission issues news releases to announce a fine; he paid a $17,000 fine in 2007 for raising money for a runoff election that never took place.

Besides Hueso, several of the city’s most influential politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, have received fines.

That list includes Murphy, the former mayor, who was fined $500 for campaign violations stemming from his successful re-election bid in 2004.

In an interview, Murphy said the commission has been “more effective than we hoped,” and lauded investigators for their fairness and objectivity.

“The first five years, everybody loved the Ethics Commission,” he said. “The last couple years, a new set of elected officials has been less than enthusiastic about their aggressiveness. But I think the public wants an aggressive and fair Ethics Commission. Just because one or two people criticize it does not make it ineffective.”

Emerald isn’t the only one upset with the commission.

Rob Rynearson, a Pacific Beach resident and treasurer ofFreePB.org, a group that opposed a beach-alcohol ban in 2008, said his experience with ethics investigators left a “sour taste in my mouth” because they declined to help him fix his mistake. The probe revolved around a $10,000 donation his group gave to the “No on Proposition D” campaign and whether the proper paperwork was filed.

“It absolutely has a chilling effect on participation of individuals in the public discourse,” said Rynearson, who was not fined.

Fulhorst disagreed with Rynearson’s version of events.

“Although our investigation established that FreePB violated the city’s campaign laws, the commission decided that education was more appropriate than enforcement,” Fulhorst said. “We assisted him every step of the way. He chose on several occasions not to accept our assistance.”

Simon Mayeski of California Common Cause’s San Diego chapter said he’s perplexed at some of the accusations made against the ethics panel.

“The council members seem to have taken it upon themselves, at least some of them, to go after the commission,” he said. “I can’t see that the commission has done anything out of the ordinary to tick these people off.”